


t.g.i.f

by idolatry (bellmare)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, NaNoWriMo 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:34:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellmare/pseuds/idolatry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Those left behind.<br/>-- Lavi, Val, and moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	t.g.i.f

**Author's Note:**

> Nanowrimo 2015 trash repository. I call this 'Rocks Fall and Being a Contractor Kinda Sucks'.

Lavi let himself into Val's apartment and saw her shoes by the door, lined up neatly but dripping slush onto the tile. “Oh, shit,” he said. It came out far louder than he expected, hissing through the silence. Then, he frowned, because tracking in a mess wasn’t like Val. Not at all.

The air smelled a bit musty. Belatedly, he realised he should’ve at least aired the place out a little while he was here. If he was lucky, she didn’t notice when she came in.

"Val," he said loudly, kicking off his shoes and unwinding his scarf. "Uh, sorry about the plants, class ran overtime today and then I had to go for a meeting and it's been pretty busy the past few days. Your mail’s with me, by the way. Didn’t know you had a thing for crafts, a brochure came in with some other stuff.”

At a loss, he went to open the windows. The curtains fluttered a little. It wasn’t any better, really; the air outside smelled hazy and vaguely of ozone. Perhaps a storm was in the air. Lavi shut the windows again and went to sit down on the couch, careful to avoid the sagging patch in the middle. That couch had many memories, some perhaps a bit more embarrassing than others. God, he remembered that awful saggy patch being murder on his back when he'd fallen asleep on it a few weeks ago.

It was Wednesday when Val said she was going to take off on short notice. Something about a group assignment and tracking down a renegade something-or-other. Lavi hadn't really pressed for details. Things like that happened all the time, anyway. If it wasn’t her, it was definitely going to be him; if not them, then someone else.

"Val?" he said again, louder this time. He got up and knocked on her room door, then tried again after a few moments. No answer. He cracked the door open gingerly, easing it wider.

Nobody was there. Okay, then. Maybe she went to the bathroom or something. Might as well see if there was anything to eat.

.

Half an hour later and with no Val in sight, perhaps it was time to think things through. It occurred to him that perhaps he was waiting around for nobody, and maybe she’d gone for dinner or something. Well, shit, he’d also forgotten to buy groceries.

At a loss, Lavi settled for staring down at the container in front of him in a mixture of mortification, regret, and contentment. A suitably weird jumble of mixed feelings over a suitably weird-tasting box of muffins. He’d eaten the rest of them, remnants of a gift from last week. He'd originally brought them as a ploy to get Val to help him finish the rest of the five oddly spongy bricks -- proclaimed to be honey macadamia muffins, and he could sort of feel and taste the resemblance if he tried hard enough. Or maybe if he didn’t think too hard about it. Same thing. Four muffins and plenty of regret later, he tried to convince himself that she wouldn’t have wanted that many, anyway. God. Would he get indigestion or something for scarfing them all down this late? Only time would tell.

At a loss, he swept up the crumbs on be table into the waxed paper muffin cups and flattened them, squashing them unceremoniously. It’d have been pretty rude to throw the muffins away, even if they tasted even more chalky today than they had last week. A girl from another team had given them to him; she couldn't have been in the programme for long, seeing as how she still had dark hair and bright eyes. She’d talked a bit too loud and too fast, her words weaving around Lavi like eager puppies as she chattered. Stranger still, it hadn't felt like the nervous bravado of, well, freshmeat -- it just sounded like she was always that way.

 _You thought she was cute_ , Denebola said. _Didn't you?_

Lavi caught his reflection’s eye in the microwave door, and scowled at himself. Not that it’d do anything, but at least it made him feel a little better. Where did Val even throw her garbage? Navigating other people’s houses was a nightmare. "What, no, I mean--"

_Maybe she likes you too. That's why she gave you the muffins._

"I doubt it," Lavi said, louder than he intended. "She gave them to everyone in the block."

_Do you think we'll see her on Monday?_

"Why-- wait, no, scratch that. You are not gonna take over my mouth and embarrass me. Also, I'm pretty sure she's not available."

_So you admit to entertaining the possibility of--_

"No! Shut up!” Lavi stood, his chair legs scraping across the floor. “Anyways, I'm going back to do some laundry. I'm out of shirts."

_Yes, and whose fault is that?_

“Argh,” Lavi said, more out of habit than anything.

.

He could hear the machines running before he turned into the communal laundry room. The lights weren't turned on -- evidently whoever it was had decided to take their chances with leaving their laundry in overnight, or had gone to the convenience store for a late night snack or something. Lavi fumbled a little for the switch before finding it, only to see Val perched atop one of the front-loaders, staring resolutely into space with a bottle of fabric softener or something cradled between her knees. She didn’t blink, not even when the lights turned on. Oh. Was she ignoring him?

"Hey, V," Lavi said by way of a greeting, setting down his laundry basket. "What time did you get back?” Stony silence. Val was very good with the cold shoulder when she put her mind to it. Which she did, a lot. He tried again. “And ... uh, sorry about the plants, by the way. You know me, I might as well have a brown thumb. A withered thumb? Okay, sorry, that was bad, I'm sorry."

She didn’t reply. Huh, was she really that mad about it? About the dead plants and the unaired rooms and the … the lack of food in the fridge, he’d almost forgotten about that.  "Uhh. Val? My bad, I know you always look after my place really nicely when I'm away, but I guess things got kinda hectic the past few days. I, um, dunno if you’ve had dinner but there’s muffins. Well, no, _a_ muffin. It’s totally great! And I’ll buy you new plants, no big."

He snuck a sidelong look at her, just to gauge her reaction, and was caught off-guard by the look of her. She looked a lot like one of those godawful dollar store Halloween mummies left outside front doors to scare children -- wrapped and plastered up, the veins stark along her throat and face. Lavi coughed and tried to look away in a manner that was both fast enough and sufficiently unobtrusive. "Rough day?" he asked, clearing his throat. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her eyes. Val shook her head once.

The washing machine hummed quietly, midway through the spin cycle. Val breathed in shallowly through her nose, seemingly impervious to the rocking and creaking of the ancient machine.

Lavi sighed and dumped his basket on top of the machine next to her, and began tossing in his laundry. He dumped in the standard things -- detergent and softener -- and slammed the door shut, then cycled indecisively through wash options. Express or heavy-duty? If he had sheets and clothes in there, would it be linens or standard?  

Without looking at him, Val said, "do you remember Mistilteinn?"

Lavi set the box of soap powder back on the shelf. He'd forgotten to bring his own, and the brand they had here was somewhat shit. "Uh, sort of. I guess. Why?"

Val shrugged a little and slumped, as though everything called for tremendous effort. "Just wondering."

"Right. So ... uh ... how was work?"

She mumbled something he couldn’t quite hear. "Sorry, what?" Lavi said over the slosh of water as his washing machine started filling.

"... wipeout," Val said rather indistinctly. Lavi wasn’t too sure what to make of that. Val was never the chatty sort, but usually she was pretty articulate, if only because she doesn't like repeating herself. Being cryptic was never really her thing, but there was a first time for everything.

She started talking again before he could open his mouth to ask for some sort of clue. "It was a total goddamn wipeout," she said, far too calmly.

"Whoa, Val, since when did you get pottymouthed?" he asked. If anything, her expression got stonier -- a pretty impressive feat, all things considered. “Okay, care to explain? We’re not all mind-readers here, though I really wish I were one. What was wiped out?”

"Everyone." She picked at the fraying hem of her shirt, pulling at the thread. It unravelled by degrees; she wrapped the thread around her fingers, pulling hard until the circulation cut off. "They ... all ... ugh. It was a chain reaction. One after the other. Look. Tell me something. Just do it, okay?"

He'd never heard her sound like that before. "Um. Yeah, sure. Fire away.@

"... have you ever gone to fight something you know you can’t win against, and everything in you tells you you can’t win, but you gotta try anyway?”

It took a while for Lavi to unpick the tangles in her question. What did she even mean by a _chain reaction?_ This wasn’t chemistry class, for god’s sake. He didn’t answer immediately, casting around for a way to mask his confusion. He settled for trying to make a great show of finding a comfortable way to lean against the washing machine without the edge digging into his back. "Um. Well, yeah …? I mean, that's what it means to be a contractor. You try so hard and only get so far and dying is a frequent occupational hazard. Gotta wonder if everything else is really worth it in the grand scheme of things.”

Though he wasn’t facing her, he knew she’d turned to give him an accusatory look. "So, you're prepared to die, then."

"No, dammit!” He threw his hands up in the air. “Geeze, Val, who is? But when you think about it, that’s exactly what we should be. We’re living on borrowed time -- you, me, and everyone who became a contractor. That’s why it’s called forming a _contract_. You think it's great and cool but because you're young and stupid you don't read the fine print and everything hurts, only it's too late to do anything but grin and bear it. Because you know you're making a difference, and you gotta do what you can in your own little way. So what's your point?"

Val snorted under her breath. "Right. Borrowed time. Nothing much can hurt you, but you will probably go crazy and have to be put down when that happens. Do you still believe all that? Do you really believe all that garbage about changing things and making a difference? Doing the right thing? Making the world a better place? That the sacrifice of a few for the greater good makes everything worth it?"

Lavi winced despite himself. "I don't know. I mean, yeah, I still think so. Look, let's not talk about that."

Anger spiked sharply in Val’s voice, the first hint of emotion from her so far. "You asked."

"I did not. I just asked you how things went."

"They went to shit, if you really must know. Two teams wiped out, two were lucky enough to escape with half intact, if you count 'heavy casualties, will require extensive miasma grafts and rehabilitation' as intact, and the last one went berserk."

“Oh.” After an outburst like that, Lavi didn’t really know what an appropriate response would be. That sure wasn’t a topic covered in any etiquette or decorum classes he knew of. Perhaps he ought to bring it up at the next assembly, or something. Why wasn’t that sort of thing taught? It sure as hell seemed relevant.

What did people even do at times like these? Patting her shoulder seemed contrived. And patronising. What was he supposed he do? Offer condolences?

"Oh," he said again, very lamely. "I'm so sorry."

Val shook her head slowly, like an old and tired dog trying to shake off a particularly persistent fly. "Sorry," she said as well, though she sounded ... well, hollow. Wooden. Like she'd been saying it a lot, and was just saying it again now because she didn't know what else to say. "It's just. It'd have been better if they'd gotten killed quickly. One fell swoop. I’d never want to die afraid. Or know it was coming."

Lavi tried to swallow; his throat felt like sandpaper. "They ..."

"Just like Mis-- just like that thing. I guess ... I guess they couldn't control their evocations any more. I don’t blame them. I’d have done the same." She exhaled softly through her mouth, ruffling the ends of her hair. “They just went for it, tossed down all those stimulants or just plain overrode the control arrays. I guess they thought they'd stand a better chance if they just threw all caution to the wind and went straight for it. Go out in a blaze of glory, take down the ... the final boss." She snorted, a little. 

"But you're--"

"I fell behind." She sniffed a bit, resting her chin on top of the bottle of detergent. "Got separated."

Lavi tried to laugh. It came out shaped all wrong. "Got lucky, more like."

"You think?" Val asked, drumming her fingers against the bottle. "I had to take care of them. Before ... before they turned on the rest left alive. By the time I caught up, it was gone. Quiet. Escaped after eating the front-runners, most likely. Lucky me.”

"I'm so sorry," he said again, though this time he meant it a lot more.

Val’s washing machine chirped, signalling the end of its cycle. Lavi almost jumped out of his skin.

Val turned her head slightly, resting her cheek against the bottle cap. She blinked slowly, slow enough for Lavi to see her pupils were overblown and unsteady. "I'm officially on leave for the next few ... well, I don't know how long," she said at last, making no move to retrieve her laundry. "Guess I'll go buy new flowers tomorrow. Don't worry about it."

"What? No, you’re not--"

She straightened, suddenly sharp and focused. "To what? To lie in bed and mope? To think about the fact that yes, I had to kill everyone left alive in my unit before they went and ate me, or everyone else left who couldn't fight back? To think about the fact that I went and overdosed because I thought I was gonna die anyways? Or that when retrieval picked me up they forced so much suppressants into me I couldn't even remember who I am or what I was doing? You think I like it, having everybody look at me and tell me how sorry they feel for me, when I couldn't even remember why until two hours ago? They said I was lucky I didn't lose control myself, after pushing it so close. I don't want to be lucky. I don't want to be here. Damn it, Lavi, I didn’t stage an elaborate escape from the ward to have you waltz in here and patronise me. Leave me alone with thoughts of my dead teammates and dead flowers, okay."

 _Not enough,_ Denebola murmured. Lavi could feel his eyes watering, his vision blurring at the edges, overlaid with Denebola’s. _Not enough suppressants. Alphard is coming. Be careful. Prepare._

 _Shut up,_  Lavi said, digging his nails into his palms. The tiny throb of pain helped somewhat, but not enough. _We are not fighting them._

Val glared at him, her eyes dark and unfocused with the effects of the suppressants. She swayed a little; her right arm seemed to warp, the shape growing indistinct. Denebola’s voice was a low, urgent buzz at the base of Lavi’s skull, urging him to shift.

With great effort, Lavi tried to force out a laugh, and Denebola laughed as well. It sounded awfully like a cheese grater stuck in his throat. "Well, glad to see you're getting back to your usual chatty self, I guess."

This he knew; this he could understand. Survivor’s guilt was something they’d covered only briefly in theory, back in the academy. He was pretty sure Val would tear his head off with her bare hands if he brought it up, though, Alphard or no Alphard.

He coughed and cleared his throat again. "I was gonna say, no way, hahaha! No point getting new plants when I’m just gonna make a mockery of them again. What about, er, some nice plastic ones? You can even get stuff that won’t thrive here otherwise, maybe some hothouse … uhh … orchids. Birds of paradise. Or maybe stuff that you don’t normally see indoors. Bromeliads. I like that. You’re my bro … bromeliad. Yeah, that’d be nice. How about it? No need to go for practical things like herbs or, um, gerbils. Wait, no that’s an animal. Gerberas? I think that’s the one.”

Lavi was aware of his rambling, of the nervous edge in his voice while he tried to hurry Val away from sensitive topics. It seemed to work -- Val deflated slightly, shoulders sagging. This was good. This he was equipped to handle. Scattered attention and sluggishness were part and parcel of heavy suppressant dosages; he was glad she hadn't recovered from it yet.

She sighed quietly. "Oh. Well. Yeah, okay. Fine. Orchids. Fake orchids. That will never die. I’d like that." In an undertone, she muttered something that sounded like, “at least some things won’t die”. Lavi chose to ignore that part.

"Good, good." Still edgy from almost having a laundry room brawl, Lavi pointed at the bottle of softener still sandwiched between Val’s knees. "So. So-o-o-o-o. What's that for?"

She gave him a look that could be anything from disdain to indifference. "Oh, god," he said, uneasy again. "Look, I kinda get how you’re feeling, but let’s step away from--"

"Shut up, Lavi," she snapped. "It was for my laundry. I try anything with this and Alphard will have me emptying my guts out over your shoes. So, no."

"Oh. Okay, then."

“Besides, it’d be a waste of everything else. Everyone.” She made no move to clarify what she meant, and Lavi decided it wasn’t worth pursuing the topic.

This time, the silence was marginally less uncomfortable, but no less awkward. The shadow of their confrontation hovered low over their heads. "I'm sorry," Val said again.

"It's okay." Lavi used his ankle to push her laundry basket closer, and started to unload the machine. "... so. How're you holding up?"

She was quiet, so long that he thought she wasn’t going to answer him. Slowly, at first, then in a rush, the words spilt out, piled heavily between them, "I'm not okay. Is that what you want to hear? That I'm falling apart?"

"No, I--"

"Well, fuck you!" Her voice went thick, like there was something wedged in her throat. "I'm doing fine. I'm fine, okay, I'm fine, don't you dare pity me. Don't you dare feel sorry for me. You say sorry one more time and I’ll … I’ll … I don’t know." She looked at him, her expression unreadable. “I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said.

Lavi swung the machine door shut and straightened up, wincing at a crick in his back. "You could go to sleep," he suggested. “Hell, I want to sleep.”

“No,” she said, quite firmly. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Aw, come on, V. it’ll be nice. And it's the weekend. I promise I won't call the inspector if your snoring starts to shake the building.”

“No,” she said again. It came out like a growl.

The stimulants and suppressants had probably unbalanced her even further; sent her adrift from whatever moorings she had. He wondered, fleetingly, just how much of her was Val right now, and just how much was Alphard, wound inextricably into her bones.

Val shook herself out of her daze from staring at a water stain on the wall. “I think I’m going to go now,” she announced.

"Wait." Lavi opened and shut his mouth, thinking about what to say. "D'you want me to stay over or something?”

She stared at him. “In case you need anything,” Lavi added hastily. “And I guess I can probably help you buy groceries tomorrow too, I kinda need to stock up myself. We can, uh, go shopping for fake plants too, if you like. I think there’s some kinda sale going on at that big homewares store. We can get those, er, fake orchids you wanted."

Lavi flinched when Val's hands descended, clamping on either side of his face. "Uh, what," he had time to say, before she leaned forwards and kissed him.

Her right hand moved slightly, sliding from his face down to his neck. The heel of her palm flattened against the side of his throat, flush against his pulse and he stiffened, momentarily caught between discomfort and anticipation. For god's sake, this was Val who probably killed a lot of people recently and was starting to remember it. This was Val with an awakened Alphard stirring beneath her skin, a reminder that even packaged and fettered in a human body, a demon was still a demon.

She pulled away slightly, still close enough for him to feel her breath against his cheek. When he licked his teeth he could taste blood -- and he didn’t know whose it was -- metallic and sticky in his mouth.

Lavi opened his eyes to find her staring at him, expression unreadable. Her left hand was on the back of his neck, nails digging in, just a little. She pressed down -- not hard enough to break the skin, just enough to warn. "Let's go," she said. He didn’t pretend to misunderstand.

.

He kept his eyes on the walls, the ceiling, the dresser -- anything, to avoid having to look her in the eye. Sure, he'd gone into her room before; he'd hit his shins often enough on her dresser or whatever it was while they'd drunkenedly fumbled at each other in the dark. She'd redecorated since the last time, though; he almost fell over when he lifted his foot to avoid where he thought the edge of her bed was.

Val worked off his shirt and pants as he preoccupied himself with staring at the now-unfamiliar shapes and shadows on the shelves and on the nightstand. The clock on the nightstand read _00:50_ , luminous digits flicking slightly. Or maybe it was just his eyes; he didn’t really know. He drew in a shallow breath when Val pushed him onto her bed; the sheets were cold and rumpled against his back.

She leaned over him. Her hair tickled his cheeks, brushing against his ears. She wound her fingers through his hair, nails scratching against his scalp. "Do you want to stop?" she asked. Her hands were cold, her heartbeat too slow, too irregular. 

He forced himself to meet her eyes. Too close, too quiet. Their foreheads were almost touching; this close, it looked like her eyes weren't reflecting anything. "Do you?" he replied. Then, "I meant it. When I said I'd be here if you needed anything."

She rose over him like a tide, and he let her, because it was the only thing he could do for her. She was slow, uncertain at first, like she was trying to remember how her body moved and what corresponded to what. This time, it hurt; this time, she bit and scratched and dug in, hard enough to draw blood. When she decided she’d had enough, she simply let her arms give way, and crashed down on him without a sound.

Lavi didn’t sleep that night; at some point, he wondered who was taking advantage of who.

.

He woke up to a wedge of sunlight hitting him square in the eyes, the curtains only partially drawn. He wasn’t very surprised to find Val nowhere in sight. She'd never liked showing weakness, and to her, he was certain last night's display was considered a textbook example.

It took a while to relocate his clothes from somewhere amongst the sheets, looking the worse for wear after being slept on and flattened repeatedly. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to smooth them out into something not resembling an abstract textile art piece. After some thought, he made the bed too, because he somehow felt guiltier looking at the unmade sheets and the duvet drooping towards the carpet.

He padded out of the room in time to see her kicking the door shut behind her, laundry baskets in tow. "Good morning," she said, as though it was just like any other weekend where he'd come over to hang out. And, fine, in some ways it was, if he could ignore the other parts. The elephant in the room. The many, many elephants in the room. It was unusually warm this morning; perhaps she'd turned the heating on.

"Morning," he replied, and sat down on her couch to start sorting his laundry. "Thanks for getting my stuff, too."

"Nobody would want to steal it," she said. He forced a laugh. "Rude. Why are we even friends?"

“Because I keep your ego from getting too big,” Val said. “How else do you think it can fit through the door?”

They sat on either ends of the couch by unspoken agreement; Val commandeered the TV remote, flipping aimlessly through channels for a while. Lavi wondered whether he was imagining the elephant herd in the room, or whether Val just really didn’t care. Halfway through an infomercial -- wait, an infomercial? -- he wasn’t really paying attention to, Val stood up and retrieved the muffin he left for her last night.

"Where did this come from?" she asked, peeling the wax paper cup.

"Would you believe me if I said I made it?"

"Maybe," she said and bit most of the top half off. "Oh. Stale. Interesting flavour and texture. I don't think I can see it being much of a commercial success. Yeah, I can definitely believe it. Tastes like sawdust and sugar. I suggest you stick to punching things and putting your foot in your mouth."

Lavi felt cheered; if Val was up for being snide, surely things were almost normal. "Then no, I didn’t make it. It was from someone on this floor. She’s nice. We should go say hi."

"You’re awful. And what’s with that suggestion, you think this is suburban family roleplay? Two and a half kids and a hypothetical dog? You're moving too fast." She demolished the rest of the muffin in two bites, then licked the crumbs off her fingers. Lavi finished folding his laundry and leaned back, wishing he had something else to do with his hands. Val slouched against the sofa and propped her feet on the coffee table -- something she'd always given him shit for doing -- and worked on folding the muffin cup into half, and then half again.

"How're you feeling today?" Lavi asked.

Val folded the muffin cup into eighths with some difficulty, then flattened it between her palms. "I think I'd like to be alone for a while."

"Oh. Okay. Gotcha." Lavi got up and retrieved his basket, trying not to think about the fact that he'd be doing the walk of shame down the corridor. On a weekend. Well, at least they didn’t live that far apart, though he’d still prefer to not run into anyone on the way back. Perhaps he should take the stairs?

She shifted slightly, half-drooping over the sofa arm, and watched him try to stuff his feet into his shoes without wearing them properly. "Call if you need-- if anything comes up. Okay?"

"Yeah," she said. Lavi had no idea whether she actually intended to call or not. Perhaps he shouldn't be leaving her by herself. Not until he'd confiscated anything and everything potentially worrisome, anyway. But nothing could be done about the windows. Maybe he should tell the people in the floors below to look for any dynamic exit attempts. He could feel Val staring a hole into the back of his head as he pretended to fiddle with the lock and door handle.

"You gonna be all right?" he asked as the door creaked nosily open. It sounded like something right out of some horror game. Perhaps it was an omen, that he shouldn’t just let her mope around by herself. Surrounded by dead plants. Crap. He should've woken up earlier and thrown everything out of the window.

Val waved him away with an air of casualness that set his teeth on edge. "I'll be fine," she said. "Just a little tired. Lock the door. And take the key, if it makes you feel better. I don't want you breaking my door down if you feel like you need to babysit me."

She sank sideways into the couch as he stepped through the door. He could just about see her arms hanging off the edge of the sofa, reaching for the TV control.

Lavi hovered uncertainly outside her door for several minutes, the teeth of her spare key digging into his palm. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a slight movement; when he looked up, there was a faint distortion near between the hallway lights, an indistinct heat-haze blur.

“Hi, C,” he said and the blur seemed to jump and wiggle slightly. “Keep an eye out, won'tcha?”


End file.
